DJ Box - No Gaming

[kleinwl]

Gentlemen,

I am building a DJ box for a friend. I am unsure of the cpu requirments of Sound software... so I thought I go for overkill. He can afford it, since DJing pays pretty well.

SFF - Biostar 330N (939 / G 6100 Integrated)
X2 3800+ CPU
Seagate 7200.8 SATA 250GB HDD
Benq DW1640 DVD/RW
BlueGear X-Mystique Sound
2x1GB Geil Value Ram 3-4-4-8
Dell 1905FP (reuse)
Logitech Wireless KB/M


I haven't seen any reviews on the 330N, what do you guys think about it?
Any generial suggestions? I'm going SFF for ease of portability... but I've heard good things about the super LAN boy too... Reliability is paramount.

Thanks!

 

[Commodus]

The Super Lanboy is more of a tower than an SFF; I have one, and while it's light it's not exactly what I'd bring to a DJ set.

Wouldn't a laptop be best? That would be a lot less gear to carry to a gig, and it would better fit in the tight spaces DJs are sometimes forced to work with. If you went that route, a large screen would be good, but careful about choosing a display whose DPI is too high: he won't be that close to the screen. Do load up on RAM and consider a laptop with a 7200 RPM hard drive.

Also, consider a backup external drive no matter what system you get. You don't want him to have to cancel a gig because his hard drive crashed and he didn't have his music or software on hand.

 

[cheesehead]

If he can afford it, I'd go for a high-end Asus laptop, like the A71V, or one of the high-end Sager notebooks. The A71V is a beast of a laptop, and can be configured with a 100GB hard drive, 2GB of DDR2 533, and a 2Ghz Pentium-M. It's also farily light.
The only real reason to get a Sager is because some of them have a seond hard drive bay, but external hard drives can be made pretty easily, so it's not much of a problem. (Grab a 80gb Hitachi Travelstar for 100$, a 20$ bus-powered enclosure, and you're set.)
JNCS.com is a good place to buy the A71v.

EDIT:
With these, you'd likely want to look into an external soundcard, like those made by Creative.

Another option is Apple's Powerbook. They actually make very good DJ laptops; there is a plethora of free DJ programs for OSX. (I had at least four on my old iBook.) In addition, they have built-in optical audio out AND input, so you can not only play music at very high quality, but you can import it, too.

 

[Tiamat]

Notebook is where its at. Esp for DJ type stuff, the notebook would be the best match. As the above stated, you want a 7200 RPM drive, at least 1GB of ram, if not 2GB, and possibly, an external sound card.

 

[imported_sphinx]

I used a notebook for my gigs/shows. The problem I ran into was HD space. I would get everything on your list but scrap SFF. Get a rackmount case to hold the hardware.

 

[8steve8]

it seems like on hardforum ppl read the op and give him good advice,
here people might read the op, but ignore it, and just sell their idea, give some little speech that doesnt really help anyone.

regardless..


there has been no review of the 330n

i think an SFF would be the perfect item for a dj, plentiful/cheap/fast hdds in 3.5"
spdif as well as many great sound card options...
great cdrom ddrives that can rip even protected audio disks, like the samsung w162c
and ur choice of monitors....

but the question is which sff??? while the 330n seems ok, who knows about the reallity, the last biostar sffs have been very questionable in noise, cooling, and performance.

i can voutch for the sn25p... it has great sound, an envy chip onboard... spdif in/outputs...
not silent, but one of the quietest sff's, and it supports raid1 , which in my opinion is gunna be absolutely required in a system like this,,, if a hdd dies during transport, u dont wanna have to tell the owner u cant do the gig... raid1 makes sure ur system is available regardless of a hdd failior
u will need to buy a cheap video card, but then ull get DVI! which is much more desirable. buy a fan-less pci-e x16 video card, like a nvidia 6200 TC or an ati x700 or anything really, make sure its fanless.. since u dont need gamming, better to not have to worry about those crappy fans breaking or warping and getting really loud.

the sn25p holds up to (3) 3.5" hdds and a 5.25" cd/dvd+-rw

-good luck.

 

[8steve8]

as for the hdds, the 7200.8 is dated and quiet frankly really doesnt have much going for it..

if u want 250GB disks, id get teh hitachi T7k250, these are 250GB SATA2 disks which only use 2 platters to achieve that capacity.

the units are significantly faster than the seagate 7200.8 and still very quiet.


if u only needed a 160GB disk id go with the 7200.9 drive from seagate.. this drive only uses 1 platter!! so reliability is high and noise is low... unfortunately the rest of the 7200.9 drives do not use this 160GB platter, they use less dense platters.